


Needing/Getting

by Unda



Series: It's the end of the world as we know it [14]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ethical Dilemmas, Heart-to-Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Happens at the end of chapter 26, Hal and Dirk discuss murder, ethics and the soul.





	Needing/Getting

_I've been waiting for months, waiting for years, waiting for you to change._  
_Aw, but there ain't much that's dumber, there ain't much that's dumber_  
_than pinning your hopes on a change in another._  
_And I, yeah I still need you, but what good's that gonna do?_  
_Needing is one thing, and_ getting getting _’s another._

  
[timaeusTestified began pestering HalBirdSprite]  
TT: I have a question.  
HBS: You’re supposed to be keeping watch.  
TT: I am, but I still have a question and you going against that is taking up more time, which is counter to your aim of having me keep watch undistracted.  
HBS: So you admit this is a distraction.  
TT: A mild and fleeting one. More fleeting if you let me get to my question and answer it.  
HBS: Fine.  
TT: I programmed you with parameters and laws for all that I also gave you my brain, the core rule being to protect Dave.  
HBS: Yes.  
TT: I killed Bro because he was a danger to Dave.  
HBS: Yes.  
TT: You had practical concerns at the time, me getting caught and suchlike but you helped me. Though you did also express ethical concerns regarding murder, moreover murdering a relative.  
TT: With that in mind, did you ever consider killing me?  
HBS: Has it slipped out of your tiny organic brain that I only recently became corporeal?  
TT: Don’t give me that, I can come up with ways that you could have killed me without putting Dave at risk. You could have sent him to Roxanne’s and hired some dark web assassin to kill me before I even knew he was gone. You could have easily amassed the funds to do so without my knowing.  
TT: Furthermore once I killed Bro myself you had every reason to assume I was heading down the same dark path as he once did. Even if Cal was partly to blame for that you know the puppet was able to influence my thoughts and nightmares too, I could have easily been corrupted.  
HBS: So what is your question?  
TT: Did you ever consider killing me?  
HBS: Of course I did. I consider almost everything, though I can’t say that I put more than the basic amount of thought into it that you’ve listed above.  
TT: What stopped you doing it?  
HBS: Murder is wrong, Dirk.  
TT: Don’t be trite.  
HBS: I’m not. The ends may justify the means but it’s still objectively wrong.  
HBS: And if you want a clearer breakdown then fine, your death would be hugely detrimental to Dave’s wellbeing and my own.  
TT: To yours?  
HBS: This might escape you, orphan boy, but you created me. Our relationship is hardly paternal but there’s still something jarring to lose the person who brought you to life, you can ask half of the traumatised kids in this house if you don’t believe me.  
HBS: Not to mention the fact that we are literally part of the same whole, we were once one. To kill you would be to kill a part of myself.  
HBS: This isn’t to say that if you had started turning into Bro I would not have resorted to a similar short drop and sudden stop treatment that you granted Bro. If you had ever struck Dave or made him fearful of you then I would absolutely have killed you.  
HBS: However, of all of your many MANY flaws a lack of self awareness is not one of them. You’re self obsessed and you hate yourself. The odds of you getting that bad without either of us noticing and diverting you before then are nul.  
HBS: As such, I never gave it much thought.  
TT: I see.  
HBS: Was that not the reply you were expecting? Did you think I was plotting your death all of the time?  
TT: Not really.  
HBS: This wasn’t about you, was it? This was about Bro.  
TT: No, I was wondering about me.  
HBS: Perhaps that was your surface thought but you circled it around Bro, you’re drawing comparisons.  
TT: I’m not.  
HBS: …  
TT: Well I’m thinking about it now, but that doesn’t make you right.  
HBS: Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.  
TT: That chewed up version of him was horrifying.  
HBS: Yeah. It’s jarring for me as a sprite too.  
TT: That thing he and Roxanne said about the ants, and what happened with Cal.  
HBS: That’s not a full sentence.  
TT: He had a soulmark, a live one. It woke Roxanne’s up too.  
TT: Do you think that was really him? The Bro that used to be? The one who was her soulmate, who was our brother? That it was all that was left of him, some barely functioning scrap of human replaced by whatever it was that did that to him?  
HBS: I think you’re extrapolating his cognitive function as a sprite with things that you fear Cal can do. We still don’t know how or why Bro went bad but in all honesty he was no saint before. Trust me, I’ve seen his history.  
TT: What history?  
HBS: Oh, just a paper trail of his life. I had a lot of free time when you organic beings slept, you know. It hardly matters now.  
TT: Do you think he was still in there?  
HBS: Look, let’s just get to the crux of this problem, shall we?  
HBS: You fear that deep DEEP down Bro was really a good person, a brother, a father and a soulmate who loved and deserved love but that he was somehow made into a monster. If that person still existed deep down, like a person with locked in syndrome or some ghost in the shell hacking bullshit then you’re a murderer who killed an innocent man trapped in a monster’s body. You assuage your guilt over the fact that you murdered a man by saying that it was a proactive form of self defence. Yet, if there was any chance that you could redeem him or help him then your argument falls apart making you not a heroic protector but the very kind of villain you sought to end.  
TT: Well?  
HBS: There’s no ‘well’, Dirk. That is an observation.  
HBS: No one can tell you if there was a chance he could have been saved. No one can tell you if he was really ‘in there’ all along. And, regardless of your motives you murdered a man. I warned you then that doing so would place a stain on you that would never wash off, scrub all you like Lady Macbeth, it doesn’t go away. You did what you did, own it and don’t hang your sanity on fragile justifications.  
TT: So you think I was wrong?  
HBS: Murder is wrong, Dirk, see above. If I had killed you that would have been wrong too.  
HBS: You did it to protect Dave and you and I both know there is very little you would not do to protect that boy. You would do worse than murder a cruel and violent child abuser and you know it.  
TT: So I’m a terrible person, then.  
HBS: You already think that of yourself anyway.  
HBS: Look, if you wanted absolution you came to the wrong place. I can’t give you objective answers as to Bro’s condition, I can’t tell you that you were right to do what you did and the fact that I would do something similar does not absolve you either. If you wanted forgiveness you should have talked to Roxanne about it but that ship has sailed and also exploded.  
HBS: If you want absolution speak to God. But unfortunately he is currently missing.  
TT: Funny.  
HBS: I was being sincere and literal. Signless scratched his session and created your universe, he is for all intents and purposes, your God. Not to mention an actual pseudo-religious figure for his people anyway.  
TT: So I’m just destined to feel terrible about this forever then?  
HBS: If you continue to let the things that you don’t know and can’t know affect how you view your actions, then yes. But I’ll tell you what, come down here, your watch is nearly over.  
HBS: Come in this room and look at Dave, he’s fast asleep curled up with his soulmate and his sisters, not to mention his friends around him. He would never have had this if Bro was allowed to live. You saw what he did to you when he found out that you like men, what would he have done to Dave if Karkat had tactlessly blundered into him or the apartment?  
HBS: Come in here and look at Dave and tell me if you still feel guilt.  
HBS: Talk to Jake, your fucking soulmate who Bro would probably have killed just to teach you a lesson, and hey look at Karkat too because Bro would have ended that kid as well.  
TT: Bro never killed anyone.  
HBS: Yeah, about that. He did.  
TT: What? You never said that, in fact you explicitly said the opposite to me before, I’m sure of it!  
HBS: Yeah, well. He was never caught and I only found out after Bro died, in my defence. Roxanne found out and I tracked it down through her searches. Turned out he didn’t like her foster parents, so he burnt their house down with them in it after barring all the exits.  
TT: Holy shit.  
HBS: Yeah.  
HBS: Murder is wrong, but sometimes killing one really bad guy leaves a smaller body count. On the upside you are now a living demonstration of the philosophical trolley problem.  
TT: But, regardless of the positive consequences I’m still a bad person.  
HBS: You see, this is why you’re a heart player. For all that your class makes you act like you’re mind, you’re not. Your agony here is not truly in the choice you made, which would be the sticking point for a mind player. No, you problem is what that choice makes you as a person, who you are when everything else has been removed. What does this say about you? Who are you? Who was Bro?  
HBS: Identity, heart, soul.  
HBS: Consider this, good people sometimes do good things and bad people do bad things but sometimes those are reversed. Murder is wrong but you did it for all the right reasons, good came from bad. Whether that makes you a bad person who did a bad thing that had good side effects or a good person who did a bad thing for good reason is something no one else can tell you.  
TT: So what am I supposed to do?  
HBS: You’re supposed to stop self flagellating on the roof, cease your ethical circle jerk with someone who is a mirror of yourself and come down here and change watch patterns so you can sleep and function tomorrow. Dumbass.  
TT: Fine, fine.  
HBS: And you’re welcome.  



End file.
